Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

ONE! readers ask...

Dear Apis,
I have a question that has been bothering me ever since I started paying closer attention to the ingredients of my food: How many calories does semen have? I can’t really ask my friends and I get very different details from the Internet so I’d love to get your informed answer.
Yours,
B.

...and Apis answers:

Dear Semen Enthusiast,
If you think I have anything but Yahoo Answers at my disposal for dealing with sex questions in a teen magazine, then you highly overestimate the number of doctors that would agree to be as underpaid as I am. Surprisingly, the number is approximately zero. If I was a doctor, my parents sure as hell would be a lot more comfortable telling their friends what my job is.

Anyway, please don’t try to integrate semen into your nutrition? 5 calories, says some random person with an anime avatar in a forum that I choose to believe. Be safe and suck a dick if you absolutely -

--

“You’re not actually going to send that to the editor, are you?” Marco interrupts Mats’ writing fit, leaning over his shoulder. He’s holding a kebab in one hand, a tissue in the other one and doesn’t even try to empty his mouth before he talks. A drop of kebab sauce lands on the computer screen but Mats decides to ignore it for his own good. It’s not like he can talk Marco out of being an icky asshole sometimes, all hope there is lost.

“Are you out of your mind?” Mats answers while saving the document, “Of course I’m not sending that. I just need to get that shit out of my system before I can formulate a nice, appropriate, educational answer. “

Mats swivels around in his chair two times and sighs. “Calories of sperm. God, these teenagers are going to be the death of me.”

Marco chews and nods in agreement although he doesn’t even have a difficult job. The fashion page is easy – advice columns are the real monsters.

But then again, Mats thinks as he sees Cathy walk up to their desks with a pack of anxious teenagers, at least he’s not doing fotonovelas. You have to see the positives in everything.

ONE! magazine contains its fair share of everything that adults think a teen might long to read, except probably the things that teenagers actually want to read.

Despite everyone’s good efforts, the management denied their requests to include a meme segment although Marco’s proposal was very thought-out and included numerous colourful Venn diagrams. Thinking back, the problem might have been that Marco had been entirely decked out in clothes with the troll face printed on them but who wants to get hung up on details?

“Every single time I check up on you two, you’re taking a break. Unbelievable.” Cathy says, her mock-disappointment debunked by her smile.

“I was working before Marco interrupted me.” Mats defends himself, turns back to the computer screen and opens some random document with submissions. If there’s anything Mats can do on point, it’s looking productive while being the opposite.

“And I’m on my lunch break!” Marco adds and shrugs as if he’s genuinely sorry that he cannot work right now.

Mats and Cathy look at each other and snort simultaneously.

“You were already on lunch break two hours ago when I asked you whether you could take a role in this photo story.” Cathy gestures at the camera bag in her hand and then at the teenage models behind her. “You said no.”

“I’ve got work to do!” Marco tries but fails to find anything on his desk that looks remotely work-related.

Marco shoots Mats a pleading glance but no way in hell is Mats going to help him.

“Marco, your fashion segment is the same collage of baseball caps and ripped jeans every single week. I think you can make time to take a couple of photos.”

Marco sighs, sticks out his tongue at Mats, shoves the last bit of kebab into his mouth (thankfully in that order) and follows Cathy and the teen models to the location on the yard.

Which means Mats can return to writing his advice column or at least return to staring at his blinking cursor in concentration.

Coming up with snarky answers is easy but he’s sort of expected to be nice and not hurt those kids’ feelings and shit, as Basti had to explain to him on several occasions actually.

There are other questions in his inbox but all equally annoying and of the boring is-my-girlfriend-cheating-on-me variety but honestly, Mats is glad that some kids out there try to get their advice from someone as clueless as himself.

The Ask Apis part of the ONE! website has a couple of submissions coming in but Mats is going to make intern Erik deal with that later because the Internet always seduces him into using bad grammar and emoticons.

After checking facebook, taking a selfie and watching Marcel from Advertisement walk past his desk nine times, Mats finally sits down to write up his advice.

By the middle of the fifth question (My Geography teacher hates me), Mats has already elevated himself into the mental state of feeling like the saviour of teenagers worldwide when he’s interrupted by someone knocking on his desk.

Mats saves his progress with a quick keyboard shortcut and groans to point out just how incredibly annoyed he is when he looks up into the face of Mario Götze.

Mario is leaning against the partition, probably trying to look cool and wearing what might have been a sharp suit – on someone else’s body.

Mario raises his hand for a little wave and Mats has to stop himself from rolling his eyes. He has an idea why Mario made his way down from the top floor where the Star Mail people work and pretend a boring daily newspaper is better than a its happy teen mag branch. Anyone who prefers the weather forecast over a quiz that tells you which character from Pirates of the Caribbean fits you best should consider loving themselves.

Mats still asks though.

“Can I help you, Mario?”

“I’m looking for Marco, actually.” Bingo. “I wanted to talk to him about this idea that I – uh, that Bastian had for the, uhm, summer series.”

Mats quite enjoys watching Mario scramble to make this endeavour seem work-related and nods slowly. It’s a game both of them have played too many times recently, but not so many that it would stop being sort of funny how Mario tries to woo Marco.

“Marco is helping Cathy,” Mats explains and then rubs his chin and squints at Mario as if in deep thought. “Hang on though, I’ve got a question. That idea – is that the same one that you talked to him about last week? Or the week before that? Or wait, the idea that Bastian said Star Mail didn’t actually commission and it turned out you lied?”

When he hears Mats tease him, Mario’s smile falters for a split second before it comes back to full-watt beaming. Can’t get the fucking sunshine out of this guy, maybe that’s how you make it in business. Not that Mario’s made it, necessarily, but he has a glass desk with a plant on it while Mats is stuck at his chipboard desk with a BVB bobble-head.

“I have many ideas,” Mario says, completely unfazed and Mats contorts his face in a way that says ‘sure you do’. “Anyway, can you pass on to Marco that I was here?”

Mats shrugs and hmms and as he watches Mario walk away, he wonders what would happen first: Marco and Mario finally going on a date, or Mats going on a date that doesn’t just involve himself and a football match on tv.

Mats turns back to his computer to punch the last few flowery lines of his advice into the keyboard about how Geography sucks ass anyway but at just about the same time that Mario steps into the elevator, Mats’ e-mail pings.

send your agony aunt shit over, layout needs it for touch-ups, it only reads since Pierre never adds greetings or goodbyes anymore. Mats levers himself up from his chair and peers across the room to where Pierre has a slightly larger and slightly better lit work space.

Pierre is looking right back at him with a shit-eating grin so Mats replies, your face needs a touch-up and attaches his Ask Apis texts.

The next e-mail is empty except for the reference line that says beer later?

if i can pry away marco from his upcoming modeling career in fotonovelas, sure!

--

They head to the bar in the evening with a few other people tagging along, mostly because since this magazine issue is close to being finished, nobody wants to take work home anymore. They don’t invite anyone from upstairs because once you take one of them along, they all follow somehow and then you miserably sit among people whose idea of downtime is discussing taxes.

On the way, Marco complains about being cold so loudly that Cathy eventually gives in and hands him her jacket so he shuts up. It only results in Marco focusing on something else though – his favourite hobby of pointing out every single attractive guy to annoy Mats.

“What about that dude?” Marco asks and gestures at some point across the street where Mats can barely make out movements in the dark between the street lights. “His earring looks hot, doesn’t it?”

Mats literally cannot even make out any features in the guy’s face and he figures Marco is either pulling his leg or in possession of some hot-guy-night-vision.

“Be quiet, Marco. Please.”

“Don’t resist, bro! You need to get some at some point.”

Mats rolls his eyes and playfully pushes Marco off the sidewalk where he stumbles into Ciro who in turn makes some confused noises but appears to be okay, mostly.

“You know that this is the reason that you guys never get any work done, right?” Pierre huffs and Mats throws his hands up in appeasement.

“Come on, I was totally on time this week.”

“And yet I never have to write Kuba an e-mail to send in his stuff on time...”

“Well, Kuba doesn’t have to tell kids that spit can’t get you pregnant on daily basis, thank you very much.”

Mats shrugs and pushes through the door to the bar first, without bothering to hold it open for the guys behind him.

They sit down at a table and Mats makes the mistake of announcing that he’s going to hang up his jacket because everyone else immediately dumps their coats on him to take with him.

Mats stumbles to the coat rack, barely able to see past the pile on his arms and throws the clothes onto the hooks to the best of his abilities. He doesn’t even whine about it once, which, okay, where is his fucking award.

Just when he is about to return to his friends, he notices a pile of newspapers and magazines on a small table next to the coat rack.

Mats can see the bubblegum pink capital letters from ONE! peek out so he nudges the papers on top of it away, acting as if he just brushes them by accident, and finds two of those One Direction guys looking back at him from the cover.

Mats’ mind immediately supplies the names Zayn and Liam but he’d rather die than admit that he’s dug himself that far into boy band hell just by working for a teen magazine.

This copy of ONE! is unwrinkled and unstained so it’s safe to assume no one in this bar ever opened it but then again it’s not the right clientele either, judging from how well-read the football and fishing magazines are.

With only the slightest feeling of petulance, Mats pulls the teen magazine out from the pile and carefully arranges it on top. When he is done though, Mats surprisingly finds another teen mag below it.

Maybe someone should tell the keeper of this bar that ‘teenagers’ and ‘people who are allowed to drink alcohol’ do not have the largest of intersections.

It bugs Mats on another level as well because this is HMU magazine, their own personal equivalent of a Revierderby rival.

Mats leafs through the pages quickly, sneering at anything and everything just because of who he is as a person, before he rolls it up decidedly and sticks it into his inner jacket pocket.

Nobody needs to see this shit, Mats thinks, and no, this isn’t childish, ha.

When he returns to the table with the satisfaction of a good deed done well, someone’s already had the kindness to order a beer for him as well and Mats happily drops down on his chair.

“What took you so long? Did you-“ Marco starts but Mats interrupts him right away.

“Marco, I swear to god, if you were going to say ‘Did you get dick?’ then... I don’t know what I’m going to do but it’s not gonna be pretty.”

In response, Marco just slowly closes his mouth. Mats should probably tell him that Mario came by today but that’s hardly news anymore so he saves it for later.

Across the table Cathy is asking Erik about his experience as an intern and everyone next to them looks as if they’re about to snooze off, faced with such an adventurous conversation topic.

“So who got stuck with the article about the bread diet because I need to laugh at someone who has it worse than I do.” Mats throws into the round and when Mitchell groans and lets his head hit the table, it’s just the start of everyone griping about work.

Mats is in the middle of quoting a couple of the best questions he received this week when Erik draws attention to himself.

“I’ve got a question,” Erik says and Mats does NOT say, Okay, as long as it’s not about sperm, ”How did you get your job?”

Marco snorts and Mats snorts as well but he’s unsure whether it’s in response to the question or to Marco.

“That’s what my mum wants to know.” Mats says straight-faced and he can see that it unsettles Erik a bit. “It’s not a long story, actually. I wanted to be a journalist so I got an internship with Star Mail when I was studying. Thought I’d do the big stuff one day, the political articles and shit like that. And I mean, Star Mail did take me on but only for their newly founded teen mag. So, well.”

“Could have been worse.” Pierre butts in and slowly nods like an old man reminiscing the past with his skat buddies.

“Could have been worse.”

“You could have actually ended up at Star Mail and become a nerd. Or you could have worked for HMU.  We should all be grateful.”

Mats can read Erik’s face like a storybook and right now there are a lot of questions written on it. He only feels a little bad for enjoying freaking Erik out.

Mats counts the seconds until Erik asks the next question and arrives at ten, which admittedly is better than the last intern.

“Why is the column called Ask Apis?”

“Alliterations, dude,” Marco answers and holds up his beer bottle for someone to clink glasses with him. “Worth their weight in money. You got a lot to learn about this business.”

--

When Mats arrives at work in the morning, the first thing he does is inattentively scroll through his inbox to skim the new questions, the newsletters and the office gossip that Sebastian sends around.

Marco, as usual, arrives about ten minutes late, making finger guns at anyone who is unlucky enough to cross his path on his way to his desk.

“What’s up, fucker!!!!” he greets Mats, with at least four exclamations marks and needless and groundless enthusiasm.

As Mats watches Marco sit down and shove folders from his desk to place his legs in the same spot afterwards, Mats wants to die a little or at least sleep a little but. Whatever.

“What are you up to today?”

“Eh,” Marco replies and lets his head fall back against the back of his chair. “I’m supposed to interview this guy about corduroy coming back in fashion but that’s only in an hour so I guess I’m going to photoshop some more collages of jeans. You?”

“Reading up on vaginal fluids.”

Marco laughs his ass off for at least three minutes although Mats thinks that all this should have become less funny at some point – but apparently not for Marco.

He decides ignoring the laughter is the best strategy and turns back to his computer screen where he actually manages to productively work for about thirty minutes until Cathy turns around the corner and Mats shamefully closes the tab with Yahoo answers.

Marco is still in the same position as before, with his legs propped up on the table, only now he’s holding the fresh-from-print edition of ONE! in his hands. He seems to be genuinely engrossed in it and even quirks his brows at some of the content.

Mats clears his throat and gestures at Marco’s hands.

“You’re actually reading our magazine? You do know it’s shit, right?”

Marco stops him with a wave of his hand.

“I’m not reading ONE!” he says and lifts the magazine to reveal another magazine he had secretly been reading underneath which throws Mats back into the time when they lived through uni lectures together. “See, it’s the new HMU.”

Mats catches himself far enough as to not let his jaw drop. He does feel personally attacked though because this? It’s like sucking the devil’s dick while in church.

“That’s worse!” Mats says firmly, “You read our competitor’s magazine! You gave them your money! If Bastian catches you, you’re gone. I can’t believe you read fucking Shut Me Up!”

“I think it’s supposed to mean Hit Me Up. With the H and all.”

“Shut Me Up, Fuck Me Up, Hit Me Up, I don’t care! You’re still reading it! Oh God!”

Marco is singularly unaffected by both his betrayal and Mats’ rant. “Chill, Mats. It’s not like I’m gonna go leave you for them. Be at rest, my child.”

With that, Marco turns another page and doesn’t see the angry look that Mats throws him. The whole topic could have been over and done with at this point but, well, it isn’t.

Marco suddenly draws his feet from the table and sits up straight, squinting.

“Wait a second,” he says out of the blue and fiddles with the HMU magazine to put it on Mats’ desk with the right pages open. “Do you remember that sperm e-mail?”

“Uh. I don’t – I don’t know what it says about my life but you’re going to have to be more specific.”

Marco lightly whacks Mats on the back of his head and then uses his finger to rapidly stab at a text on the opened page.

It’s a neon coloured box of text that takes up one and a half page, with a picture of a smiling dirty blond young guy on the upper right corner.

The title reads Ben’s Bit of Advice in a font that’s just a nuance too close to Comic Sans and Mats realises that it’s an advice column. Marco’s finger circles one specific line and Mats finally understands what he’s getting at when he reads the question: How many calories does semen have?

Mats pulls up the question that he received on the computer while Marco opens Ask Apis in their magazine at the same time. They read it again under their breaths while comparing it to the one on Ben’s Bit.

It’s the same, word for word.

“This makes me angrier than it should,” Mats concludes and rips the page out of HMU magazine. “I mean, it’s just one question and I doubt anyone is going to notice but – who is desperate enough to want answers from two advice columns? Who is desperate enough to ask H-M-fucking-U? Is there no code of honour in this community?”

Marco’s lips twitch like he wants to laugh but doesn’t want Mats to knee him in the face.

“Do you know that guy?” Marco asks. “This Ben or whatever?”

Mats ponders while he carefully folds the magazine page into an accurate smaller rectangle. “No, can’t say that. But six degrees of separations between advice columnists and all that Milgram shit.”

Marco grabs the sheet of paper and holds it closer to his eyes.

“Good-looking though.” he says and throws Mats a look that is apparently supposed to mean something. Mats cannot believe that asshole right now.

“For real, Marco? You would try to marry me off to a goddamn goat if given the chance. It might not even be the writer. It’s totally a stock photo.”

Mats snatches the piece of paper back and stores it safely under the BVB bobble head. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Marco open his mouth again and, well, that’s the story of how Marco usually gets into trouble.

“No,” Mats prevents it right away. “You’re also not allowed to set me up with a stock photography model.”

Marco pulls a face for a second but quickly moves on like the puppy with a short attention span that he is at heart.

“Also like, it doesn’t sound like a teenager, I mean, come on! It sounds like someone who’s in a midlife crisis!”

That’s somewhat true but Mats just laughs. “Oh, so you sent it?”

“Get fucked, Mats. Anyway, his answer is better than yours, by the way. You just gave the number of calories and this Ben sneakily included a whole talk on safe sex. You have to step up your game, Mats.”

It’s childish but Mats still sticks out his tongue at Marco.

“Don’t you have some guy to phone about corduroy?”

It’s not the best of comebacks but it serves to let Marco focus on something else.

Mats nudges the bobble head and stares at the folded magazine page until the head stops swaying.

--

The next issue of ONE! is written up as usual and Mats does not enquire about this Ben from one of his other advice columnist friends like Sami so he pretty much lets the whole thing go and doesn’t think about anymore when he has to answer teens’ worries about cheating boyfriends.

But in the end, it’s still not a surprise that it comes up again, simply because of the fact that Marco is a) an avid reader of teen magazines (and unironically so) and b) HMU specifically.

On a related note, Mats finally realises where Marco gets all the pink plastic giveaway bracelets from – but that’s not the main point when Marco shows him another copied question printed into both ONE! and HMU in exactly the same sentences.

Is my crush avoiding me? is the headline Mats reads twice on two different pages and like, it’s weird.

“This is definitely not a coincidence anymore. I just don’t know what to make of it. I feel honestly hurt in my role as a quality advice giver!” Mats says and melodramatically clutches his chest.

“You know what, I’m going to stay on this case,” Marco announces and wiggles his arm with the pink star bracelet, “if this turns out to be some Hit Me Up Conspiracy I want to be the one to uncover it.”

Evidently there are other things Marco wants to... uncover as well since he suddenly turns away from the conversation when he spots Mario stepping out of the elevator and quickly checks himself out in the window.

Mats is left alone with his very valid sorrow which makes him extremely uncomfortable so he walks up to Pierre’s desk – Pierre is his superior after all.

“Look at this shit,” Mats says without premonition and throws the cut-outs from the advice columns onto Pierre’s keyboard.

Pierre doesn’t bat an eyelash, he only mutters “hmmmm” as he looks at the cut-outs of the magazines, still typing away on the computer like a beautiful multi-tasking motherfucker.
“This is... weird indeed. But there’s nothing really we can do against it. I’m not going to start shit with Podolski because of one or two letters.”

“Podolski?”

“The editor of HMU. Anyway, if this seriously annoys you, send them an e-mail but I really wouldn’t make such a fuss about it. Oh, and please don’t tell Bastian. Or Mario, since he just came down here to kiss the carpet Marco walked on.”

“Why not?”

“You know how Star Mail gets. Always thinking about sacking us although we’re about five times as fabulous as they are. But don’t worry, just settle this with your advice buddy and don’t start shit.”

“Why do I have the feeling that you don’t care about my worries at all?”

Instead of answering, Pierre looks at Mats and laughs once, drily before turning back to his computer.

Cathy says about the same thing so Mats actually checks the HMU website – in a private window, that is – but never gets around to writing an e-mail because what would that sound like anyway? Hello, I’m inexplicably obsessed with my sad excuse of a job and would like you to stop meddling with it?

Yeah. No.

A week later, Marco walks up to Mats without greeting him, just waving a new issue of HMU, and if there is a letter combination Mats is fed up with already, it’s this one. It just doesn’t spell good news anymore.

“Did they find out about the duplicate questions?” Mats asks and reaches to grab the magazine out of Marco’s hand but Marco holds it away from him, probably to keep up the suspense.

“I guess they must have! There’s something in Ben’s Bit of Advice that’s definitely referring to the question about the avoidant crush. I mean read the last lines!” Marco says and when Mats does, it leaves him fuming.

Last week I explained that you just can’t guess what another person is thinking so if you want to know for sure you should probably talk to them.

I know some people would try to turn you away from them because they like to guess the worst about a person but - takes one to know ONE! (If you catch my drift.)
I hope this helps you,
Ben

“Is that what I think it is? ONE!? Did he actually name-drop us?” Mats asks incredulously and Marco nods.

That Ben - that goddamn asshole!

This? This just turned into war.

--

Dear Apis,
How can I find out whether my friend is interested in me in that way? I have a crush on him and want to know whether he feels that way as well.
Thank you so much for the unique advice you give here, it has helped me a lot!
Yours,
B.

Wassup B,
There are tons of way to check out whether your friend like-likes you, as kids nowadays say.
Maybe they like to make plans with you, are particularly touchy-feely, hate it when you flirt with someone else and go out of their way to make you happy

If you keep an eye on that, you should get a good feeling for where the two of you are at, especially since you probably know your friend best.
Talking to him without knowing for sure might certainly turn out to be the worst option so take your time.

I wish you and your friend all the best! If you have any other questions, HMU. (If you catch my drift.)

Take care,
Apis

--

Dear Ben,
How can I find out whether my friend is interested in me in that way? I have a crush on him and want to know whether there is more for him as well.
Thank you so much for the unique advice you give here, it has helped me a lot!
Yours,
B.

Hello B,
I know you probably want to be sure before you bring up your crush to your friend – and there are a couple of tell-tale signs but I’m sure you’ve thought about them before on your own – but I have to say my best advice is the one I tell every other issue: Communication is the solution. You’re friends and if you’re ready to bring it up, just talk to him with all your worries, hopes and doubts.

I know some people might give different advice but then again, some people support Borussia Dortmund as well.

I wish you all the best,
Ben

--

Dear Apis,
My problem is about my mom. I love her but she just can’t respect my privacy – she likes to go through my personal things like notes I leave for myself or even my phone sometimes. When I call her out she apologizes but doesn’t stop doing it.
How can I explain to her that it really upsets me?
G.

Hey G,
I can really relate to your situation! I too feel like some people cannot respect my privacy, for example when a person apparently hacks into my e-mails to use thequestions I get in their magazine as well! So I can also relate to you feeling annoyed because it’s the same for me!

But hey, enough talking about me. I’d advise to leave a note for your mother somewhere where you know she’ll find it when sneaking around. That should make her feel appropriately bad.

And of course, as a super-great friend of mine sometimes says, or should I say ‘writes’: Communication is the solution. If you can, talk to your mom about it.

I wish you luck,
Apis

--

Dear Ben,
I know for a fact that my friend’s boyfriend is cheating on her but she always tells me how much she loves him so I can’t really tell her about it – can I?
Please help me,
Q

Hey Q,
How do you know her boyfriend is cheating? Did you walk in on him or did you overhear something? I’m asking because maybe it’s just a misunderstanding and nothing to raise trouble about.

If you’re sure that’s a recent and important situation, I’d advise you to talk to your friend. She deserves to know and probably trusts you do tell her about your worries.

Yes, yes, I can hear you moaning when I say communication is the solution but if something is true why not repeat it? Other people – not naming names – are just angry because they didn’t come up with it themselves.

Yours in hopes that I’m the only magazine in the rough Ruhr area answering this question,
Ben

--

Mats lets out a long sigh and kicks the overfilled waste basket under his table but it doesn’t really help much.

No matter how often he arranges and rearranges the paper cut-outs from the ONE! and HMU magazines in front of him, his annoyance doesn’t disappear. Neither does his urge to build a trophy for himself out of paperclips that says ONLY REAL ADVICE COLUMNIST IN RUHR AREA vanish.

Fuck this Ben, honestly.

It had continued, of course. Someone was still sending questions to both ONE! and HMU and there was no real way of preventing the doubles from getting published because Mats has to pass on pretty much every submission he gets in the long run.

Marco still reads the HMU for his own enjoyment and to find the doubles in the advice column, just so he can cut them out and leave them on Mats’ desk without comment but with an annoying smirk on his face.

It has sort of turned into the passive-aggressive olympics by now and although Mats has never even met Ben, he hates him in the way that makes him want to scratch the Borussia logo into the side of Ben’s car with a key.

“But honestly – Communication is the solution. What does that even sound like?” Mats grumbles, not really speaking to anyone but he knows Marco is always sitting behind him and probably listening in. “I’ll tell you what a good slogan sounds like: Communication is salvation. There you go. Not an alliteration but it rhymes.”

“Right.” Marco replies, drawing out the syllable while he happily clicks away on the online poker game on his computer.

“I’m serious!”

“Oh, I know how serious you are! I’ve watched you fighting him via advice for teenagers for more than a month. I’m beginning to think you enjoy it. The tension. The potential for hate sex.”

“Shut up, I don’t enjoy it! I just want to set that stuck-up dude right!”

“And yet you’ve never talked to him directly. Only with your not-so-stealthy shit-talking. I mean, it’s probably someone from them sending the double questions. We’re rivals, they want to undermine us. But it’s never going to stop this way, you’re playing right into their hands.”

Mats pulls a face and decides that Marco is obviously not right, just like he never is, hasn’t been since the day they met in uni when Marco vomited on Mats’ shoes.

“Alright and what have you done today?” Mats accuses him and actually sees a tiny flash of guilt pass through Marco. “Narrowed down the definition of freeloader? Practiced your heart eyes at Mario in the webcam?”

Marco snorts and ignores about 90% of Mats’ question. “I don’t even know whether Mario is into me.”

Mats rolls his eyes. He can believe that after all this time, they’re still on square one.

“Dude, he doesn’t get his coffee from our rest room instead of the upstairs one because we’ve got better coffee filters. He wants to be close to you.”

Marco thinks about it for a second while he gnaws at his fingernails before a grin spreads across his face.

“How would you even know? I hear there’s a guy who gives better love advice... what’s his name? Something with B? Brian? Bert? Oh, right, it’s-“

The rest of the sentence of the sentence is never uttered because Mats throws himself onto Marco and they start play-fighting in their cubicle.

Right when Mats is about to mess up Marco’s hair and Marco wails loudly, they hear the whooshing sound of opening elevator doors and someone in a suit walk out of the lift.

Mats expects to see Mario when he turns around (and it seems to be the same for Marco, judging from how he tries to regain a good posture) but it’s Bastian instead, looking business as always and holding a grey folder.

When he walks past Mats’ and Marco’s cubicle, he slows down for a moment as if hesitant about approaching the two of them but then he just nods as a greeting and continues his path to Pierre’s desk.

Mats peers over his computer to figure out what’s going on but judging from Pierre’s face and the way Sebastian is inching closer to listen in, it’s not particularly joyful.

Pierre nods and shrugs a couple of times during the conversation, then Bastian smiles at him, claps his shoulder and walks back into the elevator where he came from.

Mats manages to say, “What was that about?” before Pierre heads towards him, waving the grey folder.

“I thought I told you to settle this.”

“Settle what?”

“The whole deal with the questions that are sent twice! And – and Marco stop eavesdropping so obviously and wipe that smirk of your face just because for once I’m not angry at you.”

Marco nods quickly and drops down into chair but still leans just a little too much towards Pierre and Mats.

“You said you didn’t want to start shit about this.” Mats remarks hopefully.

“I didn’t start shit, Basti did. Or well, all these people did.” Pierre says and shoves the grey folder at him.

The folder contains letters and printed e-mails sent to ONE! c/o Star Mail. Mats quickly skims the first pages and to sum it up: It’s politely-worded hate mail written by teenagers and their mothers.

What’s up with the doubling in Ask Apis and Ben’s Bit? Ben’s advice is better! I knew in the end all magazines are owned by the same corporation! Are you using some database and laughing about the readers whom you think won’t notice? Is this rivalry supposed to be funny? My daughter’s subscription is cancelled! Blah blah blah!

“Oh.” is all Mats comes up with at first, then “Well, could have told me earlier, right?”

Pierre groans and rubs his hand across his face.

“I didn’t know either. You know our mail gets sent to Star Mail and Mario is in charge of dividing it and passing on the ones they deem relevant up there.”

“So... why are they worrying about the letters to the editor now? Did they just wait to collect them to dump them on us like a load of trash?”

“Do you think I know what Mario is doing up there?” Pierre groans before Mats and him get the same idea at the same time and turn to look at Marco who is obliviously trying to balance two pens on top of each other.

It takes Marco a couple of moments to notice what’s going on.

“The fuck you looking at me for?” he says and waves the pens around. “I don’t know what Mario wants either. I mean I – he – oh come on, leave me alone.”

“Anway,” Pierre sighs, “our mother ship Star, Sun And The Fucking Moon Mail is threatening to stop our print. Or reduce it to a one page insert in the newspaper. I know they say that once a month but – look, just make the doubles stop. I trust you.”

Mats opens his mouth to object but Pierre shakes his head firmly, presses his lips together and returns to his desk.

This is about as close to an ultimatum Mats is going to get and a wonderful if involuntary opportunity to re-evaluate his life.

“Two things, Marco! Number One, I’d just like to state officially that Star Mail can go screw itself. I mean we’re top sellers!”

Marco shrugs and lets the pen fall from above his lip where he let it shape a moustache.

“HMU was above us in the last list Sebastian sent around though.” he says and Mats briefly has to close his eyes in face of such stupidity.

“That list was alphabetical, you useless ficus tree. Good Lord. Anyhow, Number Two: Close photoshop, we’re driving to the HMU HQ.”

Marco immediately sits up straight like a puppy whose interest is caught by a cat walking past.

“To solve the question thing? Wouldn’t it be smarter to just write an e-mail?”

Mats grabs both their jackets and manoeuvres Marco out of the cubicle towards the elevator.

“Can’t spit at someone in the face via computer.” Mats replies although he knows there’s probably more to this than he can quite admit to himself.

He only feels a teeny-tiny sting of guilt about leaving Cathy to deal with the two of them finishing work early today. What do they have an intern for anyway?

--

Mats slaps Marco’s hand away from the car radio for what feels like the hundredth time. This is his car, no way in hell is Marco going to decide what they’re listening to.

At least that’s Mats’ conviction for the first half hour of the drive but after that he gives up because his hand hurts from the slapping and that hip hop doesn’t sound so bad after all.

Marco sings along loudly of course, not much better than when he does it in the shower, and keeps grinning at Mats like he knows just how much it annoys him until they reach the HMU publishing house.

The sat nav led them there but now that Mats steps out of the car and eyes up the facade, it does seem familiar. Then again, advice columnist community and all that jazz.

They walk into the building through a trendy revolving door and end up in a room that looks much like the entrance of Star Mail with the potted plants and the carpet with a pattern that seems like an unhappy cat threw up on it.

Mats determinedly walks directly towards the table that’s set below a big yellow sign saying ‘Hit Me Up Information’ because, well, that’s sort of what he wants.

“Hey, sorry, I’m looking for, uh, Ben.” Mats says and the bored guy behind the counter looks up from the issue of HMU he probably has to read for marketing reasons.

“Ben? I don’t... oh, Benni! Wait, are you here to complain about the duplicate questions in his column?”

It’s somewhat fun to watch the guy’s eyebrows move through confusion to recognition to doubt.  Mats hesitates for a second before he decides to stick to the truth. Well, half-truth.

“I work at ONE! so your problem is our problem. I’m the writer for Ask Apis if that means anything to you. That should explain why I want to talk to Ben ...Benni?”

The guy appears convinced and waves his hand in a wiggly motion that’s supposed to show Mats and Marco the way.

In the end they interpret the gesture generously and use the elevator to find an office space with a number of cubicles.

Mats wonders where to find this Ben guy – or Benni since that’s his actual name apparently – when he hears a voice behind him.

“Woah, stop for a fucking second! You’re Mats Hummels from ONE exclamation mark, right? Ask Apis?”

Mats and Marco turn on their heels and –

The guy walking towards and pointing at them is definitely the guy from the photo in the HMU mags – ergo Benni.

But the photo adorning the column must be just a little outdated. This Benni is older, more bearded, more making-Mats-forget-about-his-ability-to-speak. He’s everything Mats might have feared his, uh, archenemy to be.

Alright, that sounds weird but Benni just is an all around good-looking guy, so really Mats can’t be blamed for thinking that.

Marco takes Mats’ temporary stunned silence as a sign to do the talking. Not always the best idea but he doesn’t mess it up this time.

“The magazine is just called ‘one’,” Marco says, “you don’t have to pronounce the exclamation mark. But you’re right. That guy is Mats Hummels and I’m the one and only Marco Reus.”

“I’m Benedikt Höwedes, as you probably know. Please call me Benni.” Benni replies and his lips curl into an amused smirk that makes Mats almost feel weak in the knees. Almost.

Wait, why were they here again?

“If I’m not completely misled, I guess this is about the duplicate questions, huh?” Benni continues. “Well, let me just grab my jacket and we can go.”

Mats looks at Marco but it doesn’t seem like he understood what was suddenly going on either.

“Uh, what? Go where?” Mats says slowly and feels like he is the one that got the unannounced visitor crashing their workplace, not Benni.

Benni takes his jacket from where he had it hanging over a chair and shrugs. “Oh, I figured you’re here to fight me in person. And it’s not a problem really – there’s a yard next to the dumpsters behind the building, an ideal place to beat somebody up. You ready to go?”

If there’s anything Mats expected from this visit, this is not it.

As he can hear Marco behind me stifle laughter, Mats quickly shakes his head.

“No, that’s not – why would I – oh god!”

Benni flexes his fingers and annoyingly seems pretty nonchalant about the whole situation.

“If you’re worried about your pretty nose, calm down. I can aim for your eye.”

“My... pretty nose? What’s going on? If anything, I should beat you up.”

They’re getting pretty loud and Mats feels weird standing there in the aisle of somebody else’s office while almost everyone pointedly doesn’t stare and only a strangely tall guy, holding a cup that says HMU BAMF, seems to be interested.

Benni snorts and replies, “Why would you want to beat me up when you’ve already bothered me with your duplicates and your snarky advice? I think it’s my time to shine.”

This statement sets the gears in Mats’ mind into motion because it doesn’t appear like Benni is trying to lie or anything but genuinely thinks that it’s Mats’ fault.

When Mats doesn’t reply immediately, Benni starts squinting at him, probably letting his own gears turn, then he slowly drops his jacket back onto the chair.

“Hang on,” Benni asks, pointing his finger at Mats, “if you didn’t send the duplicate questions-“

Mats gladly takes the cue.

“- and you didn’t send them-“

“- then who’s flying the plane?” Marco pipes up and reminds everyone that he is still very much present and capable of being annoying.

Mats lightly punches Marco’s shoulder and suddenly the atmosphere between Benni and himself is a lot less confusing and hostile and a lot more confusing and friendly.

“Woah, alright, this - this changes everything.” Benni says and drags his hand through his hair so that it looks adorably ruffled. “Someone else is sabotaging us? Both our mags? We’re... allies?”

Mats doesn’t know what to respond so he just shrugs and puts on a crooked smile. He’s drifted far from his original reason for coming here which was dissing Benni face to face and hopefully making him publish an official apology. Now, they’ve got to search for the enemy elsewhere.

Weird but also an interesting perspective since Benni seems like a funny guy and Mats would have hated to have to hate him. If that makes any sense.

For a couple of moments, Mats, Marco and Benni just stand there, unsure about how to proceed until the tall guy loudly slurps from his cup and interrupts the tension.

Mats almost thanks him. The guy looks gangly but owns it with sweeping gestures and a sonorous voice.

“Alright,” he says and winks at Mats without any apparent reason. “I’m just going to save you from an endless repetition of doubting Are you sure you didn’t...? and Yes, but did you...? I mean, Benni, I told you that ONE! guy wouldn’t have the grit to send those letters. He didn’t and you didn’t and now you’ve got to figure out who it was so you can stop them and stop Lukas from firing every single one of us.”

Mats generously ignores the part about having no grit and nods along. Whoever that guy is he seems likeable, despite working for HMU. Then again, so does Benni. Huh. Well, the exception proves the rule.

“That’s Per. And I guess he’s right.” Benni explains, almost in terms of an apology, and – long story short – Per is the reason the four of them sit down in the office cafeteria ten minutes later.

After deciding that executing a blood bond in the middle of a place regulated by hygiene laws might not be the best idea, Mats and Benni agree on fistbumping as a symbol of their alliance against advice column attacks.

“So: Battle Plan!” Marco says and slaps his hand on the table to emphasize his exclamation.

“Wait a second,” Per remarks and takes a sip from his cup. “We’re just casually going to ignore that this might just be some bored teenager out to annoy us?”

Mats, Marco and Benni groan simultaneously and Per just about realises that no one wants to hear that.

“Literally what kind of teenagers do you know? Repeatedly doing this? It went on for weeks and it’s a matter of honour to set this right. And even if so, then we’d catch the teenager at least. ”

Benni actually stares Per down and that impresses Mats a lot. He’s going to have to find out how to do that to Marco.

Per mumbles, “Alright, alright.” placatingly and then something about how advice columnists are weird and that he still has photos to edit so he makes his way upstairs to the office space again.

“Never mind him,” Benni laughs and lightly touches Mats’ shoulder while doing so. And fuck you, it does not set off fireworks because this ain’t fucking Shakespeare, alright?

Mats powers through it and focuses on the issue at hand since after all, both their jobs seem to be on the line at least to some degree. He’d rather now have driven out here to come back with nothing but the image of a good-looking guy in his head.

“It must be possible to pull some computer stuff. Like get the person’s IP or something? That would help us get an idea of who might want to sabotage us.”

“You know anyone who could do that?” Marco says and laughs with a raspy voice. “Because I seem to remember that you failed to change back your wallpaper from Take That for three month after I put it up as a joke. Or did that have some other reason that your computer-technical ineptness?”

Mats carefully kicks Marco under the table and then says to Benni, who has his eyebrows raised, “Don’t listen to him. And I do know someone who could do that. Uh, his name is Mesut.  A friend of a friend, you know. He codes for reality chic.”

“Oh, Sami’s friend?” Benni asks.

“You know him?”

“I know Sami since he’s writing their advice column as well.”

“Weird. Six degrees and all that shit. It’s like, I almost know you. It’s strange that we’ve never met before.”

Benni hmmms in agreement and for a moment, there’s that awkward silence where none of them know whether to keep this meeting going or not, until Marco coughs, looks at his suspiciously watch-less wrist and calls out that it’s time to go.

Benni and Mats shake hands to say goodbye and it feels like sealing a deal.

“I’m going to write you an e-mail if Mesut finds out anything important. Till then, uh, give good advice. Communication is the solution, you know?” Mats says and can’t quite hide his smirk.

Benni wrinkles his forehead in what is a mixture between amusement and annoyance before he shifts from one foot to another like he’s unsure about his next step.

Then he takes out his wallet and digs through it to pull out a small piece of paper to hand it to Mats.

Benedikt Höwedes, it reads in shiny letters below the logo, Advice Columnist, HMU Magazine, then an e-mail adress and two phone numbers.

Point is, Benni owns fucking printed business cards like HMU is the Bundestag and he’s the chancellor of Germany or something.

Mats is impressed, jealous, and a little bit in love.

“Uhm, call me?” Benni says with a tiny smile and scratches his blond stubble. “We can meet up and work this thing out.”

“Yes! I mean, yes, that’d be. Very nice.”

Behind Mats, Marco clears his throat and Benni points his thumb over his shoulder.

“I should go back, Per is probably waiting for me. ” he says, already taking a couple of steps in that direction. “Have a nice day and don’t forget to call me!”

Mats puts the business card away safely into his own wallet before he gets back into his car with Marco to drive home.

Mats has barely hit the gas when Marco speaks – you can always count on him to act like that.

“So. He’s hot.”

“And don’t I fucking know that.” Mats says in a deadpan voice and grips the steering wheel tighter.  He’s not going to thank the person who sent the duplicates for making him meet Benni though, no way.

At some point during the drive, Mats’ phone vibrates and he checks it as safely as he can in the traffic.

cathy: did u honestly think u could just bail and expect me to cover ur sad asses? think again!
cathy: bastian wants to talk to you two tomorrow. good luck B)

Shit. That didn’t sound particularly good but at least Mats can say that they were on a work-related mission which wasn’t even a lie.

To be honest, they have just been doing their work to save the good honour of ONE! Magazine, care of Star Mail.

Marco shrugs it off as usual and turns up the radio volume with a grin before Mats dictates the e-mail they send to Mesut.

--

When Mats and Marco sit down in Bastian’s office, Bastian doesn’t say anything at first. He just looks at the white piece of paper in front of him and lets out a long-suffering sigh.

“I’m trying to be a cool boss,” Bastian finally says, not angrily but firmly – the best sign of someone who is failing to be a cool boss. “But where did you go last afternoon? And why is it always you two? We had to put the intern, uh, Erik in charge of the column on the website on his own.”

“We were just trying to get rid of the issue with HMU magazine so we drove to their publishing house. It was a spontaneous thing, we apologize. Right, Marco?”

Marco makes a sound like popping a bubblegum bubble but at least he doesn’t say anything that could ruin it.

Bastian opens his mouth to reply something when his expression suddenly softens.

“You went to Lukas – I mean Mr Podolski?” he asks and looks back onto the piece of paper.

Mats nods and Bastian weirdly doesn’t ask any further but Mats puts down the slight blush on Bastian’s cheek as something that you can only understand when you’re the boss of a teen magazine.

“Well, alright,” Bastian continues somewhat distractedly with a sigh, shaking his head as if to get rid of his thoughts. “Does that mean this problem is fixed now? We can’t let any more subscriptions get cancelled. Or, and I hate to say this, you’re done. Uhm, I might – perhaps I should call Lukas to get perspective on this. Get your asses on the move.”

Mats and Marco exchange a look that’s equivalent to fuck if I know what’s going on but just let him be and are relieved to be excused from this chat without any further discussions.

When they open the door to leave the room, they unexpectedly find Mario hovering in front of it.

“I’m sorry about all that.” he says and seems smaller than he really is.

Mats frowns in confusion and shrugs. It’s not like somebody died or anything.

“Thanks, bro, but chill, nothing happened. It’s not your fault. And I doubt Bastian would ever fire any of us. He’s way too much into our articles to do that.”

It’s odd how Mario kneads his hands and when Mats walks down to his desk and Marco follows him, he shakes his head and rolls his eyes.

“Marco, dude, go back to Mario! He’s obviously worried about something and I think it’s time to show him that you care. Jesus.”

“But –“

“No but! It’s called Ask Apis and not Disagree with Apis so make like a bee and fly your ass back to the flower if you get me.”

Marco opens and closes his mouth a couple of times like a fish out of water before he turns on his heels and walks back into the elevator. Maybe this can turn out to be the one story that succeeded because of Mats’ bad advice, time will tell.

Back at his desk, Mats looks out for Cathy even though he knows she’ll just have a self-satisfied smile on her face, but she’s nowhere to be seen, probably taking photos elsewhere. Mats sort of would have liked to tell her about Benni, somehow.

Instead, Mats checks the ONE! website and since everything appears to be more or less in order, he allows Erik to get a coffee for himself as well when he sends him to buy his favourite soy latte.

Surprisingly, Mats already finds their e-mail to Mesut answered, timestamped from in the middle of the fucking night as usual.

from: [email protected]
i did as you asked and “pulled some IT shit”. the e-mails came from inside your office, dude, if you want to play a joke on me, try harder next time.

Mats rereads the sentence four times and only briefly considers the fact that Mesut might be pulling his leg. That’s just not the type of guy Mesut is.

But... inside the office? A mole? Isn’t that just a little soap-opera-y?

Mats mentally goes through a list of everyone who works close to him at ONE! but he can’t think of anyone who would be dumb enough to try to summon Bastian’s wrath (or Mats’, for that matter.)

Erik comes back with the soy latte when Mats is still trying to figure out who B. could be, and Mats sips it while forwarding the e-mail to Benni.

Marco hasn’t returned to his desk yet but Mats figures that’s more of a good sign than anything else and he doesn’t think about it much longer because Benni replies to his e-mail with a simple Wow. Want to meet up to discuss?

Yes. Yes very much.

--

The question “Your place or mine?” was part of the following discussions but it didn’t make Mats feels as awkward as he feels now, scanning his living room for anything that he might want to get rid of before Benni arrives.

In the end, he only moves an old copy of Journalism 101 in front of his BVB Best Goals box set and considers the job done.

When the doorbell rings, Mats smoothes his hands down his shirt to get the wrinkles out and opens the door.

Benni is wearing a completely unthrilling outfit of jeans and a baggy grey hoodie and somehow still manages to look great to Mats. Not fair at all.

“Hey!”

“Hey, uhm, just come in. Leave your shoes like wherever.” Mats says and gestures vaguely at the floor area in front of the door. “Do you want to drink something? Water? Juice? Beer?”

“Water is fine, thanks.”

Mats quickly pours some water for the two of them and when he returns to the living room, Benni is already sitting on the weirdly romantically lit couch with his laptop on his knees.

“You know I’m going to laugh about you for a bit, right?” Benni says as he looks up with a grin. “You blamed me and in fact your magazine is sabotaging itself! It’d be so funny if it didn’t hurt our sales as well.”

Mats groans and lets himself fall on the other end of the couch.

“You’re here to help me, not to make fun of me, asshole.”

Benni snorts and sets down his laptop on the couch table so that Mats can now see that he has his e-mail inbox open.

“So we’re already at the stage of acquaintances who insult each other although we’re not enemies?”

Mats’ eyebrow shoots up and he isn’t quick enough to stop it from doing exactly that.

“Not enemies? Thank you.” he asks slowly, devilishly. “And anyway, we were already insulting each other pretty directly with our advice columns. For example – ”

Benni’s glare could make daisies wither.

“I swear to god, if you say ‘Communication is the solution’ right now, I will make up for not beating you up before.”

They hold eye-contact for a weirdly long time, daring and amused simultaneously. Benni breaks it first when he returns to the computer screen, pulling up the duplicate e-mails.

“So you know your colleagues best. Who could it be?” he asks and gestures at the screen.

Mats bites his lip as he thinks about it again but doesn’t arrive at any useful conclusion.
“Pierre, no. Marco, nah. Not Cathy either, or Lukas or Kuba or... any of them! None of them fit.”

Benni sighs and rubs his hand across his eyes. Maybe they shouldn’t have met up so late but there’s only the distance to blame.

“Think about it the other way around, start at the e-mail content. If we’re going to assume that the person isn’t simply making stuff up, there’s the semen calories, the question about whether the crush is avoiding them and whether their friend is into them. Does that ring a bell?” Benni pauses for a second, then he smiles. “Okay, that’s a bit of a vague description if I ever heard one.”

Mats digs his index finger into his temple as if it would help him get to the solution.

“It could be – no. No, I have no idea. And I can hardly walk up to a random person and accuse them.”

Just when Mats finishes his sentence, the laptop croaks out a ding sound that notifies of the arrival of a new e-mail.

Benni scrambles to look at it as if he’s afraid it might be an update for his porn subscription but it’s a submission for Ben’s Bit instead.

That fact only starts being relevant when Mats feels his phone vibrate in his pockets and he unlocks it not to find a text message but an e-mail alert as well, beginning with – who would have guessed – Dear Apis.

Benni reads his message out loud and Mats can follow word for word on his own screen.

What do you think about office relationships? Do you think there’s a risk there? My crush and I work at the same company but in different departments if that’s of any importance.
Yours, B.

“That has got to be a clue, Mats. Come on!” Benni says and indeed – it helps.

“Star Mail,” Mats whispers first, then “Oh God. Mario.”

It makes about as much sense as this shit can make sense. Mats had totally forgotten to take the uptight upstairs people into consideration when thinking about who in the office it could be.

“Who?”

“It’s Mario. The questions makes sense with his fucking diet and his fucking crush on Marco and he’s in charge of the mail, fuck!“ Mats breathes loudly and slaps his hand against his foreheard. And Mario dared to apologize for this! “That’s – that’s – that’s – oh my god! I’m going to kill him! Literally kill him! Heart eyes for Marco and stabbing me in the fucking back! Oh my god!”

Mats turns to Benni, looking for support in his anger, but only vaguely gets it when he finds Benni staring at him with his head cocked and a contemplative smile, probably amused about Mats’ rant.

“What?” Mats asks and frowns, momentarily forgetting the issue at hand.

“Nothing. I mean, I was just wondering why I hated you. When we were fighting via the columns, I mean. Okay, I hated Apis but same thing.”

“And you don’t hate me now?”

“No.”

“No?”

Benni wrinkles his nose, smiles and claps the laptop in front of him shut.

“No. I like you.”

It sounds as if there’s something else to be added but Benni never does so Mats has to search for it in Benni’s eyes. They’re disgustingly attractive and unreadable, it turns out.

Slowly, almost unwittingly, Mats leans forward (maybe Benni goes half the way as well) and through the electric rustling in the air, he presses his mouth to Benni’s lips.

As his heart rate quickens and Benni draws him closer with a needy noise and hand on the back of neck, Mats thinks that maybe he can’t be that bad at giving advice after all, when he manages to score this. This. Wow.

“Stop thinking,” Benni says against his lips, sounding a little bit confused about this turn of events as well but mostly just heavenly rough.

“Uh, Mario...” Mats remembers weakly but Benni says, “For real? Stop thinking,” again and Mats thinks, Mario who?, and the next thing he knows is Benni’s hands under his shirt.

They kiss with relish, losing breath quickly and Mats moves to Benni’s neck without even considering that any of this might be a bad idea.

Somehow they manage to stumble to Mats’ bedroom in the darkness where Mats thinks his heart is about to explode when he finds Benni over him, supporting himself with his hands to either side of Mats’ head. In a good way. An explosion of awesome, if you will.

Mats grabs hold of Benni’s biceps which causes Benni to smile and growl like someone who is about to fight a swarm of wasps for fun and that’s definitely something Mats can roll with.

Benni jerks his hips and Mats finds out just how red Benni’s lips can turn and what noise he makes when he comes and what it feels like to fall asleep on his shoulder, the smell of his aftershave on his skin.

--

Mats wakes up when his alarm clock beeps, like pretty much every work day. He reaches over with closed eyes and slams his hand down on the stop button, hitting it with learned precision.

Only when the rest of sleep leaves his brain does Mats realise that for once it’s weird that he could reach for his night table without an obstacle, that is, a body between them.

Mats opens his eyes and is faced with a disappointing emptiness where he clearly remembers Benni moaning last night.

He’s definitely about to panic and send a worried submission to a teenage magazine about his relationship crisis, when he sees the handwritten piece of paper on the cushion. How cliché, Mats thinks but does calm down so he can’t really complain.

Dear Apis, the message starts and Mats can vividly image that fucker’s grin when he was writing that,
I had to leave early because unlike some people I have an important job and I didn’t want to wake you because you were drooling on your hand so adorably.
I refuse to make this awkward so:
1. Make Mario stop.
2. Thank you. For real. Don’t be a stranger!

Ben-ni

P.S. Can’t believe what I found in the bathroom. HMU ;)

A smile spreads across Mats’ face as he reads but as soon as he notices, he forces it away again because that would be way too cheesy.

The last sentence sounds somewhat threatening and so Mats stumbles from his bed to the bathroom  where he finds a copy of HMU magazine next to the sink.

For a moment it’s so surreal and incomprehensible – this magazine in his house, sacrilege! – then Mats realises that he himself brought the mag here, back when he pettily stole it from the bar.

He catches himself standing there, just staring into the abyss of “summer lipstick trends” and the “summer lipstick trends” stare back.

Mats snaps out of this trance as he remembers why this whole thing started at all and he remembers to be angry at Mario.

After that, he hurries to get dressed and jump into his car to get to work and for what is probably the first time in his life, Marco had arrived in the office earlier than him, already talking to Pierre.

“Where’s Mario?” Mats demands to know perhaps a bit too loudly when Marco holds out his hand for a fistbump.

Marco slowly retracts his hand like a mimosa folding in its leaves and frowns.

“Mario? He’s upstairs, checking in with Bastian but he wanted to come down after he- oh, yeah, right, there he is!”

The elevator doors open and Mario steps out, not in a suit today but a pretentious outfit that involves more tiny straps and buckles than are countable.

Mats is about to go off on a rant about moral, ethics, god and the fucking world rotating around ONE! magazine when he sees, as if in slow motion, how Mario walks up to Marco and interlaces their fingers without ostentation.

Mats tries to cover the fact that his jaw almost drops with a yawn but it turns out transparent enough that Marco signs it with a cockily lifted eyebrow. What a fake friend, thank you very much. He’s never going to pay for Marco’s kebab again.

“Well, it’s nice to see you two got over yourself,” Mats coughs, “not entirely without my help as I might add but – Mario?”

Mats can see Mario’s eyes fluttering all over the place and he knows that he knows and Mario knows that he knows that he knows et fucking cetera.

Mats considers savouring this moment for as long as he can but he’s also still angry and has the adrenaline from yesterday night in his veins so whatever.

“You’re going to burn in hell and your eyebrows are the first thing that will light up and sizzle away into nothingness. And from what I’ve heard about the Bible on the History Channel, they’re not gonna let you play Justin Bieber down in purgatory.”

“Uh.” a perplexed Pierre says when Mats finishes his sentence with a lip smack and makes a vague waving motion in the direction of his desk. “Uh. I’ll just –I’ll leave you to this. Texts on my desk by Thursday, as usual.”

Mats can see that Marco is about to step in to defend his – his boyfriend? – his boyfriend before Marco realises that he doesn’t even know what he would defend him from so he reconsiders.

“Mario is the one who sent the duplicate questions.” Mats explains. “Mesut from reality chic looked into the pixels or some shit and said it’s someone from the office. That fact coupled with the content of the questions and Benni’s and my detective work leads us directly to Mario, who coincidentally also was able to keep the hate mail from us for some time.”

Maybe they shouldn’t talk about it in the middle of the office but Mats doesn’t even care if this is in the next issue of Sebastian’s office gossip mail.

Marco’s mouth forms a nearly perfect O. “The semen question...?”

Of course that’s what he’d focus on. Mats groans, then he nods.

Meanwhile, Mario has turned tomato-red, still clasps Marco’s hand tightly like it’s a life buoy and mumbles something.

“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch your eloquent apology and explanation why you did this!” Mats says sarcastically but the anger isn’t very strong anymore, not when he sees Mario embarrassed like that.

“It was – I didn’t – Obviously I didn’t think it through, okay?”

“I would never have guessed.”

“The first question was real, the second one as well, I just wanted an answer, alright? I could hardly ask anyone from Star Mail like Philipp or Jerome or, god forbid, Robert.”

“You didn’t need to ask anyone! The internet exists, oh my god!”

Mario shrugs and slowly, very slowly the red on his face is replaced by a dark shade of pink. He throws Marco a look of apology but Marco still seems to be too caught up on the whole thing about the semen question.

“I figured you advice columnists had received some sort of training to qualify,” Mario replies defensively and Mats holds back a snort. “And as I said, I didn’t think it through. After that is was, uh, fun to watch you argue with Benni. And Marco told me that you liked him so I kept it going. With selfish thoughts. I guess. I would never have let anyone get sacked.” Mario looks exasperated. “Someone please stop me from talking, I’m embarrassing myself.”

Mats sighs and picks up a pen from his desk to play with. It’d be pretty funny to make Mario agree to a punishment like... take on Erik’s work for a week or make him pose in Cathy’s stories but to be honest, Mats is feeling benevolent by now, perhaps really because he met Benni through all this.

Mats points his pen at Mario and shoos him away. “Okay, stop. I don’t give a shit anymore and I’m so done with this whole thing. I want you to leave now and never do this again.”

Mario nods quickly and makes his way back to the aisle between the desks. Since they’re still holding hands, Marco, still befuddled, gets dragged along.

“Wait... does that mean the questions about the crush were about me?” Mats can hear Marco say.

Mario draws his hand through his hair and makes an amused noise.

“You’re pretty slow for someone who’s called Rolls Reus.”

That was pretty funny, even Mats has to admit that. Before Marco and Mario are out of earshot, Mats calls out once again.

“Oh, and Mario? Don’t worry about office relationships but I swear to god, if you hurt Marco – well, beyond what he deserves – I’m going to publicly embarrass you in my column. Got it?”

Mario nods timidly but when Mats breaks out into a grin, he grins back as well. Mats hates to admit it but Mario can be sort of cute sometimes. In a chipmunk kind of way.

--

Mats does his usual job the rest of the day, that is, not actually doing any part of his job and browsing online. Cathy walks past his desk a couple of times as if she wants to check on him and knows that Mats is sort of –

What exactly? Bored?

Mats wants to call Benni but it seems too early for that. He really wishes that he believed in any of the shitty advice he spews out for ONE!

In the end, having solved this “case” turns Mats back to not having solved anything because he doesn’t know how to talk to Benni.

At the end of the week, both HMU and ONE! have published an apology for the double questions and that seemed almost like drawing a line under the whole issue.

Too bad that it doesn’t add up below it for Mats.

He looks at his phone on Monday but doesn’t do anything because by now Benni should have called himself, right? He looks at his phone on Tuesday and doesn’t do anything, he looks at his phone on Wednesday and –

gets a special e-mail notification.

Dear Apis,
Some time ago I slept with a guy and I told him to call me back. I’m almost certain he’s the ONE! and yet he hasn’t called. I am a firm believer in the thought that good communication is the solution but apparently he is not. What am I doing wrong?
Your B.E.N.

A grin as wide as a piece of watermelon spreads across Mats’ face and suddenly his heart feels ten times lighter. He doesn’t even care anymore if this is cheesy as hell as he finally picks up his phone and dials the number.

“I thought you’d never call. Per almost yelled at me for being so restless waiting for you, ” Benni answers the phone and his voice could melt wax. No, it probably couldn’t but fuck off, honestly. “I was just about to drive to your house to surprise you with a bottle of wine after work.”

“Really?”

Benni chuckles and Mats can pretty much imagine him leaning back in his chair and fiddling with the strings on his hoodie.

“No, but let’s make it a thing.”

Surely Mats can convince Pierre to let him go earlier. It’s a pretty sweet deal.

--

“Ouch,” Mats purrs completely without pain when Benni’s fingers slightly catch on his curls as he runs his hand through them. Mats looks up at him from where he has his head in Benni’s lap and Benni smiles as he carefully draws his fingers away.

“Hey, I didn’t say you could stop.”

Benni leans down for a kiss and his hand finds its way back.

“I could stay like this forever,” he says, ruffles Mats’ hair and lets his fingers step down to Mats’ check and jaw.

“Hmmm,” Mats hums lazily and his eyes slip closed.

“We should probably work on our columns.”

“Hmmm.”

They don’t move an inch.

There’s a comfortable silence for a few moments, with only the low sounds of the music player filling the air, before Benni speaks up again.

“I googled what Apis means yesterday. You’re so cliché.”

Mats cracks his eyes open and chuckles.

“After like three months you finally figured out that it’s not a nonsense word. Congratulations, pumpkin.”

“Hey, if you want to passive-aggressively diss me again, I might reconsider taking part in that project.”

“Wait, what project?” Mats asks and levers himself up a little from Benni’s lap, frowning. This is new information.

“You haven’t heard? Apparently they are trying to do some sort of collaboration between ONE! and HMU for a teenage fashion show or something. Sounds like they pulled it out of their asses, to be quite honest, but I’m not complaining.”

“Who’s they?”

“Lukas and Mr Schweinsteiger.” Benni replies and raises his eyebrows as if stating an innuendo just by those two names.

“Are you trying to imply something? Because I don’t get it.”

“Never mind.” Benni laughs and nudges Mats’ cheek with his nose. “It just seems like we might get to see each other more often then. Horrible, isn’t it?”

“Truly terrible indeed, you beautiful asshole.” Mats replies as he lets his fingers run down Benni’s back and smiles happily.

Terrible? More like terribly terrific twosome.

Alliteration, boom chack.